Melanistic or just black? Shingleback

[Serpentes]

Here's a rather dark shingleback from the ACT. Anyone reckon it's melanistic, or is it just black?

 

[reptilefan95]

It really depends what sort of area you found him in, apparently the colouration of shingles can vary quite a bit because of where they are living, but my stab in the dark would probably be melanistic

 

[da_donkey]

got any blacker?

 

[herptrader]

Probably just solid black - if so it may develop light patches as it ages.

What does it look like from the underside??

 

[W.T.BUY]

what colour is its belly?

 

[reptilefan95]

Yes i was about to say that as well because often there bellys are a creamy colour.

 

[zulu]

re Melanistic

Here's a rather dark shingleback from the ACT. Anyone reckon it's melanistic, or is it just black?

View attachment 105529

Hi Serpentes,all the wild shinglebacks ive seen around ACT,Crookwell and abercrombie region have been black with black underbelly which would generally make them a natural occurring melanistic population,some days we would drive through roads in these areas in the early 70s and theyd be lining up with blotchys to see who could get run over first.

 

[AlexB]

Id have to agree around here thay are all black head to tail in fact i actualy thought the "coloured" ones where different i was that used to the all black ones.

The colour is prolly phelotopical variant that won geneticaly because of the cold days we can get, (Similar to the darker Diamons) to allow the animal warm up faster.

A

 

[Serpentes]

Thanks guys, the pic was taken by my sister (who is in politics, but I've trained her well ). She took the picture because she though it was unusually black. So sorry I don't know what colour its belly was.
I don't see many melanistic reptiles in the field, last one I saw was a melanistic Lampropholis delicata! Gee, I got pretty exited about it too